nly a horse and a
little mule, which require rest, in order that they may carry us into
Thibet." "Tsong-Kaba!" ejaculated the Lisper, and then he clapped his
hands together, and burst into a loud laugh. "What are you laughing at?
What we have said is the simple truth: we have only a horse and a little
mule." When his laughter at last subsided: "It was not that I was
laughing at," said he; "I laughed at your misconceiving the sort of
devotion I mean; what we send to the travellers are paper horses." And
therewith he ran off to his cell, leaving us with an excellent occasion
for laughing in our turn at the charity of the Buddhists, which we thus
learned consisted in giving paper horses to travellers. We maintained
our gravity, however, for we had made it a rule never to ridicule the
practices of the Lamas. Presently the Lisper returned, his hands filled
with bits of paper, on each of which was printed the figure of a horse,
saddled and bridled, and going at full gallop. "Here!" cried the Lisper,
"these are the horses we send to the travellers. To-morrow we shall
ascend a high mountain, thirty lis from the Lamasery, and there we shall
pass the day, saying prayers and sending off horses." "How do you send
them to the travellers?" "Oh! the means are very easy. After a certain
form of prayer, we take a packet of horses which we throw up into the
air, the wind carries them away, and by the power of Buddha they are then
changed into real horses, which offer themselves to travellers." We
candidly told our dear neighbour what we thought of this practice, and
explained to him the grounds upon which we declined to take any part in
it. He seemed to approve of our sentiments on the subject; but this
approval did not prevent him from occupying a large portion of the night
in fabricating, by means of the press, a prodigious number of horses.

Next morning, before daybreak, he went off, accompanied by several
colleagues, full, like himself, of devotion for poor travellers. They
carried with them a tent, a boiler, and some provisions. All the morning
the wind blew a hurricane; when, towards noon, this subsided, the sky
became dark and heavy, and the snow fell in thick flakes. We awaited,
with anxious impatience, the return of the Stutterer. The poor wretch
returned in the evening, quite worn out with cold and fatigue. We
invited him to rest for awhile in our tent, and we gave him some tea with
milk, and some rolls fried